Ruairi/Floki | Water/Sound | Freyja, Sala

Eavesdropping. A honed craft of Floki’s. If his lively eyes ever seemed disinterested in the space around him, rest assured he was listening to something elsewhere. And should he so declare, this academy is a living soap opera - drama galore, at every turn. None quite as fixating as his roommate and his testy dynamic with fiery Freya, but nonetheless entertaining.

“It was an accident!” A male voice whisper-shouted, though with Floki having amplified their voices for his sole entertainment,it was almost as if he was kicking back beside the bickering couple and enjoying the show.

“She looks nothing like me!”

“Either way it’s not my fault your twin is a whor-”

“Hey, where’s your roommate?”

Floki twirled on his heels as if a villain swiveling in their chair, a malicious grin tainting his visage. Fiery Freyja interrupted the best part of the argument, but he’d rather cue in on the dirty details of the other couple later, versus meet whatever wrath she may be looking to expel upon Ruairi. Bringing an index finger to his chin, he tapped it thoughtfully as he spoke with an incline of his head. “Emotionally? It’s debatable. Mentally - he seems quite sound.” Floki may have desired to avoid Freyja’s spells of ardent anger, but he couldn’t help his nature of enjoying getting under people’s skin, either.

“Physically…” The male trailed off, though huffed dramatically as he animatedly whirled in the direction he had left Ru. Sometimes, he loathed being dwarfed by men of more average height, and this crowd was not lacking in taller figures. Leaning up onto his toes, Floki was quite certain Ru hadn’t ventured far from his corner. “This way, probably.” Having rested back on his heels, the sound machine flashed a smirk in the red-head’s direction before slipping into the crowd. If Floki had the heart to abide by the wack roles he was given by Ru, he would almost feel guilty for what he was doing. Ruairi had purposely tasked the musician with being his lookout so he could avoid Freyja, and here he was, leading the woman right to him. What a jolly good fellow of a friend Floki is, no doubt.

Approaching the space Floki was abundantly confident Ru remained pouting, his green gaze glimpsed a ray of sunshine amid a distant part of the crowd before it was snuffed out by the clouds that were composed of too many bodies piled into this place to count. Floki paused mid-step, biting his lip in anxious thought before reposing as the animatic he was. “Ru is yonder way, not too far I assure you. You’ll probably peep the pouter in a corner somewhere, he’s being quite the sour puss, you know. It’s ‘all your fault’ from what I’ve been told.” Floki began to side-step away, though took much joy in mimicking Ru’s voice in a horrendously inaccurate manner. “Toodles.” Floki wiggled his fingers to the woman as an ode of goodbye, and began weaseling his way back through the crowd.

A short dance composed of bobbing and weaving led him to the proximity of the girl he had glimpsed just a short while ago. She was golden. Not literally, but her hair reminded him of threads of purely woven gold. Stalking around the bodies that separated them, he bore witness to a smile - it was the same spectacle of sunshine he had seen emanating from her earlier that had ensnared his attention. For such a petite female she had a surplus of energy he could feel from where he paced resonating off of her. She seemed almost as lively as he was - an observation both alluring and inherently saddening, he earnestly prayed she had never endured a day of heartache that fueled her composition of those radiant smiles the same way he had. Floki did not yet exist to this girl and already he was smitten with the possibility of her, the idea of her, her. The hopeless romanticism that had wormed its way into his make-up was such a funny thing.

She was walking away from him. Not really, though. He hadn’t even attempted first contact. Filled with a childish sense of giddiness and exhilaration he decided he couldn’t just let her walk away from him. Apparently he couldn’t simply introduce himself, either. No, no. Such simplicity and mediocre introductions are far beneath him. Rather Floki briskly cut his way through the sea of people in order to head her off, and just when he had gained the vantage of being in the direction she was walking towards - just when every butterfly that existed in the world decided to migrate abruptly to his stomach - he stuck his foot out. To stop her, because he had no voice to do so.

It was not remorse, shock, or even guilt that seeped into his jade-tinted stare as he looked down on her figure, but rather entertainment. He had never been speechless before, it was amusing. And drunk on an influx of boyish emotions, all he could do was laugh in the direction of the girl. It was the only sound he was capable of producing. Shaking his head and peeling his gaze off of her, Floki turned away. She was brilliant! And he couldn’t bear to stare at her any longer because she was too perfect a thing for him to gaze upon. His actions and behavior were a wild jumble of gestures he certainly didn’t express in a socially accepted manner, but what else was a boy to do in the face of perfection? Act domestic and normal? Floki was incapable of such antics.

And Ruairi was horribly incapable of writing the first line of his speech. He wanted nothing more than to be confident in his ability to ‘wing it’, but no doubt Freyja has already created a perfectly crafted, written prose that will set fire to any impulsive speech he could give. She would smother him in this game of competitiveness and he knew it, she more than likely knew it as well but he would not bend to defeat so easily. Ru was still trying, that’s all that counted. Because his efforts were all that he had in this game. Having slid down the wall a short time ago to use his drawn up knees as a tool to write against, his pools of blue occasionally flicked up to survey his setting.

Fun was a few feet away, and victory was a million miles away. Still, he chose to walk the long road, even if his effort would be utterly futile in the end. Not that he’d ever admit to knowing he was going to crash and burn with this to Freyja though. Brushing a few untame wisps of blond that curtained his forehead back, his gaze locked onto Freyja - even his attempts to avoid her have failed. Rushing to stand to not allow her the satisfaction of quite literally looking down on him, Ru weaved his well-fitting mask of charm over his features as she drew closer and he made the effort to meet her a few steps in. If he had to fake his success until he made it, so be it. “Looking to compare your pathetic prose to my grandiose epic?” He taunted with a smirk, angling his head downward an inch to further solidify his attempt to mock her.

Freyja | Fire | Arah, Floki, Ru

Glancing back a ways towards her roommate’s position in the corner of the room, Freyja finally connected with Arah’s line of vision. She offered an expression that indicated more than it really should have, given that she’d never dabbled in any sort of magic of the mind. She barely saw Arah’s uneasy smile before she was whisked away to some back corridor she hadn’t initially remembered, her thoughts of the past narrated by some nonsensical narrative of Floki’s regarding what seemed to be an assessment of where his roommate ranked on each of the eight types of wellness.

This passageway had been a mystery to the four magic elements when they were younger, primarily because it was strictly forbidden that any of them ever enter it. She couldn’t fully explore her thoughts on the matter before Floki started his nattering again, all of which she felt little need to respond to. He seemed to be keeping his own self company, though she didn’t think she had imagined the way he was studying one particular blonde in the crowd. If she remembered correctly, the blonde Ru had dragged onto his lap the night prior before their kiss. The more insecure part of Freyja wanted to believe Floki was staring at her because of something she didn’t know about regarding the girl and Ru, but he also appeared to be dissecting her with his eyes as if she were a rare species he’d never seen before.

Swallowing any possessive thoughts she had regarding the blond, Freyja stoically thanked the young man for his annoyingly verbal guidance and proceeded down the hall. She tried not to appear too desperate or obvious as she glanced down a few of the corridors, hoping to catch a glimpse of the water element without him seeing. All of it was rather childish, but she couldn’t help herself. If she couldn’t take the high road, she could at least take a higher road than him.

Finally, she’d wandered far enough away from the party scene that the sounds of music barely echoed throughout the dark hallway, and there was no longer enough light to properly see. Using her magic to create a small ring of fire around her figure, Freyja wandered until she saw a dim glow emanating from one of the corners. Directly below it was the muscular physique of the young man she so dearly detested, shrouded in his school uniform. By the looks of it, he’d been so busy trying to best her all day with this speech that he hadn’t even had time to change his clothes for this outing. This dragged an amused smirk all the way from her eyes down to her perfectly shaped lips.

As she strided confidently towards him, Freyja got a clearer vision of what was happening. Either by a match, a lighter, or some purely coincidental miracle of Ru managing to generate a bit of fire magic, he’d been able to light one of the candles placed at varying locations in the long, labyrinth-like halls of the Obsidian Sanctum. Despite his ability to light it, there was barely any candle left, and he was on the verge of being stranded in the darkness once again. As he rose to confront her, she could see several crumpled up pieces of paper lingering in the shadows. How long he had been here, she couldn’t tell.

“Looking to compare your pathetic prose to my grandiose epic?”

Though he seemed to be utilizing his body language in a way that was supposed to be intimidating, Freyja had never been bothered by close proximity to the water element. Besides, in this moment, there was a literal ring of fire around her that was keeping him from doing anything he would–or wouldn’t–regret.

“That’s so cute and darling, I love when you try to imitate my brilliance with feeble attempts like that one. It almost makes me feel something other than burning hatred for you.”

Smiling in a way that embodied sarcasm, Freyja lifted her chin so that their lips were only inches apart, holding it there for a few moments before taking a step to the side. She brushed his arm as she maneuvered around him, reaching to pinch the wick of the candle he’d lit and allowing the light to fade into smoke. She glanced back with a menacing look, adding, “don’t worry, it wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway. I must admit I’m impressed with your little party trick, though: how long did it take you?”

Admittedly, the light from the candle was nothing when compared with the brightness of the ring Freyja had created and was maintaining with minimal effort. She returned to her stance directly in front of him, though it was difficult for her to erase the image of him wiping his mouth after their kiss the night prior from her memory. Being in close proximity to him usually had no effect on her, but she couldn’t deny the discomfort that was starting to eat away at her now. She wondered if it meant anything to him now, or if he even remembered anything that had happened the night prior. Even if he didn’t, and even if that meant something to her, she still had the responsibility of keeping up their little game.

“Let me guess: you’ve spent all day trying to write a speech that’s better than mine, but you’ve gotten nothing done?”

Kicking a ball of paper by her foot to draw attention to her knowledge of the situation, the proceeded in her statement. “Unfortunately for you–or luckily, depending on your perception of events–you’re stuck with me until you write something that’s to my standards, even if I have to write it myself. I need to crash the rehearsal dinner tomorrow, and you need light to see what you’re writing back here.”

Leaning in closely to him, she closed her fist and extinguished the light she had made. Now they were inches apart in complete and total darkness, with no way out without the ability to see anything around them. In something of a seductive whisper, she continued, “I’d give it to you easily, but it’s more fun if you beg.”

Máxime | Darkness | Arah, Floki, Sala

Sala had dragged Máx to another party well against his will and was somehow entirely convinced that this would be a different outcome than the night prior. Though he had strongly desired to slam the door in her face–at least for the first twenty seven minutes she had knocked and produced blinding rays of light through the glass peephole in his room, nearly setting everything on fire–he eventually came to the conclusion that the more effective way to remove her would be to agree to go to the party with her, get her drunk enough to lose her faculties, then leave her there with someone more sociable than him while he got a good night of rest before the insanity of the infamous trials began. He had been practicing many of the elemental spells with very little luck, and his efforts towards a type of magic he had no inclination towards had left him more tired and grumpy than usual.

Sala seemed to be having the opposite experience, and he wasn’t sure if it was because she wasn’t practicing or because she was just inherently annoying. Probably both, he’d decided, as he followed her and a trail of other students down a path that seemed as if it hadn’t been used in ages. He wasn’t sure whether it was actually abandoned, or if some of the students had made it appear that way with whatever types of visual magic they possessed. Prior to joining the academy, Máxime had come from a realm where magic was oppressed and public use had become severely discouraged for fear of death and exile. He had grown up in a way that was similar to that of a mortal, practicing his magic in private until things came to a head and it was too dangerous for the young man to simply exist in that realm. He hadn’t been exposed to much magic other than what his grandfather had taught him at a young age, and what he’d learned from extensive studies of ancient tomes and literature. All of this was new to him, including the concept of openly performing magic without the corruption of a malevolent government looming over him.

After more than an hour of trying to get the young woman to drink as much as possible of whatever it was they had decided to serve, Máxime was still no closer to going home alone. Much to his annoyance, Sala was a more emotional type of drunk than he had previously anticipated, and the more she’d downed, the more clingy she had become. She was also more frantic with her friend-making, which only confirmed Máxime’s previous belief that her sunny demeanor was just a pretense, and there was something deeper under the surface that she was trying to keep hidden.

All of this came to a head when, on perhaps her seven thousandth trip back to him from the adjacent corner where the various liquids were situated, she was purposely tripped by a man Máxime recognized from around the campus. If he recalled correctly, this man was closely associated with the blond man Sala had become so obsessed with despite his disapproval. The more time he spent here, the more it seemed that just about every woman was obsessed with him. He wondered if the man whose name he constantly forgot was charmed, or if it was just the fact that he had the physique of a Greek god. Either way, he only seemed interested in the red-haired girl who had so interestingly mastered the element of fire. There was no question why she was here, and no question of why she’d been allowed to stay if her relationship with the son of the academy’s owner was any indication. It wasn’t like she was going to leave him for the blond, which, to the shadow element, seemed to be precisely why he wanted her so badly. Despite Sala’s annoying qualities, she could never be annoying enough to fit in with a group like theirs. This was proof. She deserved better than their elitist little elemental tribe and all of its drama.

Now on the floor and wearing her drink, Sala’s expression went from shock to grief more quickly than he had imagined it would. Throughout the course of her inebriation, she seemed to be on the verge of tears, but eye contact with the man who’d tripped her for seemingly no reason had pushed her over the edge. Máx watched with curiosity as the crying girl scurried out of the room and down a dark hallway that she would surely get lost in, preparing to follow closely behind if the man who had made her cry made any efforts towards following behind her.

Ruairi | Water | Arah, Henriik, Freyja

“That’s so cute and darling, I love when you try to imitate my brilliance with feeble attempts like that one. It almost makes me feel something other than burning hatred for you.”

Freyja’s flames perfectly illuminated her smug countenance, and only accented the shine of amusement in her gaze. Ru hated it. “Well, I have found it quite difficult to emulate the brilliance of such a low set bar. I just can’t seem to nail the art of writing fluent bullshit the way you can.” The blond’s falsely sweet smile honeyed each word that fell from his lips. He was quite aware that his own abilities in this realm were grossly beneath Freyja’s, but he was quite adamant about not allowing her the satisfaction of seeing him accept that reality.

In the seconds that passed following Freyja inclining her head, all but his chest that continued to loyally rise and fall stilled. It felt vital to retain his gaze’s hold on her eyes. If his gaze betrayed him to even the briefest of flickers to her lips that were too close, to the flames she wielded with effortless ease, or even the space above them - it would only fracture his overexertion of confidence. It was not his choice though as his eyes closely followed her movement to the side, his jaw tensing simultaneously as she brushed his arm. Ru abhorred Freyja’s pursuit of playing space invader with him, their last attendance at a party only solidifying his discontent, yet he made no effort to shift away in repulsion at the moment. Though he did narrow his eyes as she vanquished his formerly meager source of light.

“Don’t worry, it wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway. I must admit I’m impressed with your little party trick, though: how long did it take you?”

“I’m amazed that it takes so little to impress you,” he began in a tone of degradation, “It must blow your mind to know that anyone, literally anyone, can manifest fire by very simple means. My effortless party trick is proof.” In truth it took Ru mere seconds to produce that little flickering flame, though not without assistance. He possessed no desire to play with any attempt at him producing fire on his own - both because the prospect of unintentionally burning himself was daunting, and Freyja would only take pleasure in extinguishing any flame he could ever produce with her own. She had already exerted her own flame’s dominion over him by pinching out his light.

“Let me guess: you’ve spent all day trying to write a speech that’s better than mine, but you’ve gotten nothing done?”

Freyja truly had him by the throat with those words as her foot nudged one of the many crumpled discards of paper that littered the space near them. He could have attempted a poorly crafted argument in defense of his failed attempts, but no argument outside of the realm of being pathetic came to mind.

“Unfortunately for you–or luckily, depending on your perception of events–you’re stuck with me until you write something that’s to my standards, even if I have to write it myself. I need to crash the rehearsal dinner tomorrow, and you need light to see what you’re writing back here.”

A heavy influx of both offense, stubborn protest, and inquisition swarmed Ru’s gaze. Torn between affirming he would not yield to conforming to her standards, and inquiring more about her plan to crash the rehearsal dinner, she began to lean closer to him. Then she murdered the light she herself had created. The sudden transition into complete darkness was mildly disorienting, at least to someone whose senses were tainted by alcohol’s influence. The words he intended to snap at her were caught in his throat as she uttered a whisper.

“I’d give it to you easily, but it’s more fun if you beg.”

Ru took a tight breath. Found himself grateful for the veil of darkness as he recomposed. A stifled chuckle followed, resonating through the dark. “Beg?” Ru challenged, shoving every other possible emotion her whisper could have spurred him to experience - void his spite - over a cliff. “You came to me, Eloquijm.” The blond’s hand retreated into his pocket, and upon gripping the device of his desire, he pulled it out and flicked the top of the lighter open to allow a flame to ignite. “I don’t need you as much as you think I do. This inexpensive, throwaway piece of metal can do the exact same thing you offer me. I prefer it, actually, because it talks less.” Ru smirked, shifting his gaze to admire the flame that came with no strings attached. The flame that wouldn’t burn him, and wouldn’t dare fail him unless its liquid life force it relied on was completely depleted.

Now that he could make out her features again, he spent a moment letting the small flame dance at his command, which felt rather nice to be in semi-control over. And as much as he wanted to believe that he could carry on with lighting candles and wasting a thousand more pieces of paper… just maybe, giving up his attempts of making his impractically stubborn vision of writing a speech that would come close to rivaling hers come true would prove beneficial.

At this conclusion, Ru lowered the hand that held the lighter, a breath riding a sigh escaping his lungs as his free hand ran down his face in an irritable fashion. “It’ll take me forever and a day to organize the splices of chaotic thoughts and ideas I have for my speech into a stable format.” He admitted begrudgingly, his head tilting in the direction of a few pieces of paper he had written on and tossed aside earlier. Ruairi could write, but it was organizing and formatting his internalizations onto paper that he cannot grasp how to do. This is why he valued mathematics - every aspect had a strict form, there were no deviations in where the numbers were to be plugged into, and he could easily memorize the structure. Writing, though, came with too many exceptions to its rules and structure. Too much leeway for deviation.

“I would never tell you I need you - because I don’t - but it would be useful for both our benefit if you could assist me… like a sidekick, but I won’t rub it in.” Ru allowed a half-grin to take shape on his lips, though he was also making a show of repeating similar words she used when coming to him for the water spell in her and Arah’s room. It was as far as he was willing to hint at his recollection of that night as well. “Why do you need to crash the rehearsal dinner? Won’t your boyfriend disapprove of such a stunt?” Ru asked with mock care, the knuckles of his free hand stapling beneath his chin. “Unless you haven’t talked to him about this yet… I wonder if you’ve even discussed this with Arah.” It was evident that the reality of him being the sole one she’s conspiring with inflated his pride. There was a muted sense of thrill and satisfaction in that thought too, but Ru didn’t dwell on those feelings.

Ru then took a few steps to retrieve his pen and the bound material that held more blank pages of paper together. Only amid his crouch did his eyes stray to the oblivion down the remainder of the hall the pair were in. It was never a relapse in bravery or curiosity that deterred him from venturing the darkest parts of the Obsidian Sanctum, although he couldn’t quite place why he never found himself bored or rebellious enough feeling to venture all of its corridors. Of course. He had already settled on the thought that there was nothing of intrigue to be found - this place was old and surrounded by eerie rumors, sure, but it would most likely prove to be a waste of time to investigate it.

Floki | Sound | Máxime, Ruairi, Sala

Crying? No, that would not do. The male can certainly tolerate being told off, or having a drink thrown in his own face. Hell, he would have been endeared if she slapped him for tripping her. Rather she began crying as she fled the scene, the sound spurring Floki to animalistically flick his head as if the sound had been physically harmful to his senses. The jade stare of his had remained steady on her fleeting figure until she was completely out of his visual vantage. He contemplated following. It wasn’t necessarily his intention to make her rain tears, if anything he had assumed she would be upset with him enough to yell at him. Most feminine specimens would in his experience.

Floki rocked forward onto the balls of his feet. Then back. Forward. Back. As he began this thoughtful movement, his fingers began to wiggle at his sides - tapping his thighs in a patternized rhythm only he could distinguish. No one else seemed to be following in her footsteps, if anything her emotional leave was either unnoticed or ignored. And he understood the feeling. They had so much in common, Floki was certain. This implored the young man to begin walking the same path she did. Through the crowd, towards the darkened hall. The occasional click of his tongue is all Floki really needed to navigate spaces devoid of light. All he had to do was listen for where and how the sound waves bounced back to him to determine how to proceed.

The male had taken it upon himself to dilute the intensity of the girl’s crying though - it was a saddening sound and he wanted it to cease from her. As he grew closer though, Floki came to a stand still. He didn’t want to be face-to-face with her exactly, his impression thus far hasn’t been grand. By most people’s definition, anyway. By the musician’s standards, it could be worse. In an impulsive burst of desire to remedy her crying and to solidify his well-meaning, a few words tumbled from his mouth. “I’m not sorry.” Too impulsive. And not at all what he had attempted to express. His tone had been far from malicious though, if anything, it had been laced in apology. Which made the statement all the more confusing even to his own ears.

Floki was not sorry though - he was not sorry for tripping her because he had not wanted her to just so easily pass him by. He was not sorry for laughing because he had been at a loss of words. He was also not sorry for following her because he so badly wanted to remedy this. Biting his lip, tapping his fingers, Floki decided to speak again, albeit with more thought put into his next vocalization. “Your name is Sara, right? Or Sasha, Sonya… Salad?” Floki couldn’t be sure what her name was, only speculating off of the few whispers he vaguely caught from individuals he had passed in his pursuit of her who did not seem at all concerned for the girl.

The music man may hear many things, about many people, but he did not always have names to match to faces he has never glimpsed before. But Floki wanted to know everything about this girl. Her name. Her favorite color. Her thoughts. Her shoe size. Her hair’s texture. Everything. She sparked such an instant obsession for him. Floki had millions of questions for her, he wanted to devote filling a thousand books with her answers to those questions. But first she had to stop crying. Even if she did, Floki was not confident he had the means to actually pick her beautiful brain apart. She intrigued, intimidated, and excited him all at once.

Freyja | Fire | Ru

“I would never tell you I need you - because I don’t - but it would be useful for both our benefit if you could assist me… like a sidekick, but I won’t rub it in.”

“Mm,” Freyja mused, mischief dancing in her eyes. “An opportunity to be the sidekick of the second most brilliant student at this academy, who happens to also be the lifelong recipient of the number one asshole award? What an offer. Good thing I cleared my calendar in advance.”

Despite her cool facade, Freyja hadn’t missed the reference he’d made to her words the night prior. It would have been stupid to think he had forgotten about the kiss and the strange tension that lingered between them, especially considering the way he’d been so fast to react to words said carelessly and in the heat of the moment the night prior. There was no way in hell he knew Heris enough to commit to her so quickly if it hadn’t been brought on by their argument–he just wasn’t the type. Still, something about his relationship with her made Freyja deeply insecure for reasons she preferred not to uncover.

“Why do you need to crash the rehearsal dinner? Won’t your boyfriend disapprove of such a stunt? Unless you haven’t talked to him about this yet… I wonder if you’ve even discussed this with Arah.”

She considered mocking him childishly, but her attention was fixated on the side of the hand that rested on his chin. Unsurprisingly, it was smudged with ink from all of the writing he’d been doing, and she couldn’t help her immature desire to see that ink stain his face and make him look even more stupid. Her attention had been diverted to the point of a diminished reaction that held intriguing amounts of maturity, especially for a situation involving this particular pair. It was almost like she respected him, even if it was for only a moment and sandwiched between typical childish banter.

“If you’re asking, I haven’t. The prince is tending to his royal duties–as one does–and Arah, well, she’s not much better today than she was last night. Despite what you may think or remember, I tend to be a delightful person to have as a friend.”

For a split second, there was a hint of something unusual in her eyes. Something reminiscent of pain or longing, something that directly linked back to a different time in their lives. In order to shift the moment before it grew into any sort of discussion about their childhoods, she hastily moved to address the light situation she’d scoffed at moments prior. In only a moment, she’d snuffed out the candle a second time, but only after replacing it with a small orb of fire that she’d directed to float between them. Sinking to the floor with her back against the frigid stone wall of the building, she glanced up at him as if to wordlessly ask why he hadn’t already made his way into the space beside her.

“You might as well take a seat, your inexpensive, throwaway piece of metal wouldn’t have been able to put more wax in that candle when it ran out in the next five minutes. It’s not like I’m gonna murder you on this particular occasion anyway, your corpse would be annoyingly heavy to drag all the way up to the banquet hall and I’m not too keen on taxidermy. If it’d make you feel better though, I suppose we could pinky swear on it.”

After a moment or two of silence, she reflected on their conversation and proceeded to respond to the latter half of his statement. “To answer your question, by the way, I prefer to see everything and practice the speech before it actually happens. I like to lie to myself and say that if there’s no surprises, nothing will go wrong. As far as the speech goes, anyway. Anything beyond that is not my problem.”

As the next hour or two progressed, Freyja balanced the fire spell in one hand and scribbled furiously on a page with the other. Things were not going particularly well, but they had at least come up with an outline that made sense and caused minimal disagreements to come up. It proved to be fairly difficult for her considering the balancing act she was putting on between the magic and the writing, and before they had fully completed the task her mind began to wander.

“As charming as it is sitting here in the middle of this freezing cold and vastly dark hallway, I think we should go exploring. For one, if I continue to sit here and let this stupid ball of fire drain the life out of me minute by minute, I’m gonna be passed out on the floor before this speech is done. Two, it feels like it would be a really satisfying ‘fuck you’ to all the adults that forbade us from going down here when we were kids. Which, really, is reason enough.”

Considering the fact that Ru seemed just as sleepy as she was given the number of hours he’d been focused on the task at hand, it didn’t take much convincing to take a break. Decidedly, it would be more fun to do the exploring drunk, so they started by going shot for shot in the hallway until well after Freyja had caught up to Ru’s day drinking. As they stumbled down the hallway, now sleepy and drunk, the fire element occasionally stumbled into her counterpart, murmuring a half-spoken apology as she redirected herself into a wall, then back into a straight line again. She had a habit of bumping into things when she was tired, and the alcohol and the lack of visibility only contributed to it.

Additionally–though she’d never admit it–it was oddly comforting bumping into Ruairi because it reminded her that he was still there. The maze of hallways and corridors were creepy enough as it was, and that sense was only heightened by the darkness and the number of years they had been told not to go down there. Arah and Henriik had always been either too afraid or too compliant to step foot in the Obsidian Sanctum, so this had always been a place that Ru followed Freyja to. She’d always felt oddly connected with it, as if it had the answers to the questions she was too afraid to ask. Still, though, she had been too afraid to get locked or lost in the dark hallways to ever truly explore it. Until now.

At an appropriate gap in a lighthearted argument about one thing or another, Freyja reached out and tagged Ru’s arm, meeting his eyes in the dark for a moment as she smiled up at him.

“You’re it,” she said childishly, running off at a fairly ragged pace, giggling as she could be heard bumping into just about anything that existed other than air. They had always played tag as children, and had often discussed how epic it would be to play in a dark space such as the one they were in. Vaguely, she hoped that he didn’t think she was childish for initiating it, but the thought occurred to her that a brief truce wouldn’t change anything about their relationship, and that she could hate him as much as she wanted in the morning without worrying about his opinions and perceptions. The scarier thought was the fact that she hoped that she would hate him in the morning, which innately suggested the concept that a world could exist where she didn’t.

The game went on for a while until she managed to use her magic to trap him in the first room they found that didn’t have a hallway leading out of it. By this point, they had to have been traveling away from the entrance for at least an hour, and she’d finally created the right combination of spells in order to shift his direction towards a place she assumed he couldn’t escape from, all the while avoiding whatever puddles and leaks in the ceiling he’d managed to find and redirect at her.

With more force than she initially thought, Freyja went tumbling into him as she pushed him against the wall. Still maintaining her state of intoxication, she could only really think about one thing at a time, and for several moments that thing was the way his muscles flexed beneath her touch as she crashed into him. Glancing up at his eyes, she took a moment to catch her breath after chasing and being chased by him for the majority of the last hour or more that they’d been chasing each other through hallways that seemed all but identical. He was panting too, and the proximity between them created something that didn’t feel like a truce to her. It felt like a war.

“Got you, I won,” she absent-mindedly said, tracing her gaze upward from his eyes to the wall above his head. It was glowing with blue letters that appeared to be some sort of runes from a past time. “What the fuck is that,” she mumbled, eyes bright with wonder as she gazed up at the wall. When she touched it, a different part glowed bright orange, just below the blue on the wall.

“That definitely has to do with us, doesn’t it?” When she retracted her hand, the orange remained. When she poked her head out of the room to look down the hall, fragments of the same glowing figures had appeared in places she’d stumbled into the wall or touched it. There were blue in places Ru had touched, though they were less common considering that he didn’t have quite as much of a problem with watching where he walked.

After a moment or two, he suggested that they follow the path back to the entrance before it was too late to do so, considering that they had no idea how long the trail would last. They spent the entire walk back discussing what it could mean, and what a proper plan of action might be in terms of finding out what exactly it was that they had seen. Though there was plenty to disagree on, the one thing they could find common ground on was the idea that they weren’t going to tell anyone else what had happened. There were too many risks, and too much had happened that was difficult to explain to someone without somehow ruining both of their lives in one way or another. At just before dawn, they arrived back in the initial hallway, greeted by the excessive amounts of papers the water element had accrued before Freyja had arrived. To their surprise, the long walk down the hallway to check on Arah and Floki proved to bear no fruit as the party had dispersed. Much to their surprise, they had been together for practically the entire night and it only felt like it’d been minutes.

Succumbing to the idea that the speech needed to be finished before they could get rest or make their way to their first class, the pair got to work cohesively working with the little bit of brain power they had left. Once they’d finally finished, they laid on the cold floor in defeat, feeling little desire to get up and walk all the way across campus to sleep in their dorms when they’d already made the damp, dark hallway feel like home. Everything seemed menial at that phase of exhaustion, even the mysterious runes and the idea of crashing the rehearsal for the banquet.

As she laid beside him on the floor, she stared up at the ceiling, though it was difficult to see because of how far away it was. The small ball of light she had, she’d extinguished. They replaced the candle with one they found further down the hallway, though it barely provided Freyja enough light to make out Ru’s features in the dim obscurity.

“This whole night has felt unreal. Like a nightmare I can’t wake up from,” she giggled softly, mainly to herself. It was softer and gentler than was typical for him to hear, mainly because she was drunk and beyond tired and didn’t have the energy to carry with her the facade she’d kept up for so many years. As the softness faded into a soothing silence, she spoke softly, more genuinely. There was something serious about what she said, something selfless and filled with the slightest sense of regret.

“I’m happy you found someone, Ru.”

He was quiet, but she could feel his gaze burning into the side of her face. For a moment, she glued her gaze to the ceiling, but ultimately turned her head to the side to attempt to read his expression. With little hesitation, his eyes traveled to meet hers. They even looked bright in the dark, though it wasn’t the color of his irises that captured her attention. It was the movement of his eyes, it was the way he was searching her.

“I meant it,” her reassurance came gently, barely above a whisper. The side of her mouth lifted in a soft smile, but the way he was looking at her made it difficult to maintain anything, let alone think. “In all the time I’ve known you, I don’t think you’ve ever truly been happy. I hope she changes that for you.”

In the moments that followed, they only spoke with their eyes, tracing each other’s figures in the dark. Freyja couldn’t help the way her eyes flickered from his eyes to his hair, which was messy from everything they’d been through. It was intimate to see him at something other than his best. She also couldn’t help the way her eyes wandered down toward his lips. The tension that lingered between their two bodies was only elevated by the minimal amounts of space between them, and turning her head had only eliminated more of it.

“What are you thinking?” She said it more abruptly than she’d meant to, and her tone was a little uneven. She hadn’t meant to make what she was trying to do so obvious, but it wasn’t like she could go back in time and change it. Turning back onto her back to look up at the ceiling, she shivered softly as the chill from the floor seeped into her bones. She was fighting to keep her eyes open, and would undoubtedly lose the battle quite soon unless some sort of major interference occurred. Surely he wouldn’t leave her here alone when he was just as exhausted as she was.

Ruairi | Water | Freyja

“An opportunity to be the sidekick of the second most brilliant student at this academy, who happens to also be the lifelong recipient of the number one asshole award? What an offer. Good thing I cleared my calendar in advance.”

Placing a hand over his heart, Ruairi grinned as if truly endeared by Freyja’s reply. “I’m glad we can both so clearly see what an honor I’ve bestowed upon you by letting you assist me.” Following with a silent snicker, Ru decided against hashing out his standing as ‘second’ most brilliant student at the academy. After all, the best aren’t insecure about the opinions of lesser men - or women.

“If you’re asking, I haven’t. The prince is tending to his royal duties–as one does–and Arah, well, she’s not much better today than she was last night. Despite what you may think or remember, I tend to be a delightful person to have as a friend.”

Having tilted his head a fraction of an inch forward in her direction, he allowed a moment to decipher what had faintly stirred in her stare, his own expression becoming a steeled mask of neutrality. It was far easier for Ru to believe that Freyja had never truly appreciated the loss of their friendship from a time that felt so long ago. The faint emotion that tainted her eyes challenged the belief he held so tightly though. And he was not fond of that. Rather than comment or give away his own buried mourning of the past, his attention shifted to her diminishing and reigniting of light in the space between them.

“You might as well take a seat, your inexpensive, throwaway piece of metal wouldn’t have been able to put more wax in that candle when it ran out in the next five minutes. It’s not like I’m gonna murder you on this particular occasion anyway, your corpse would be annoyingly heavy to drag all the way up to the banquet hall and I’m not too keen on taxidermy. If it’d make you feel better though, I suppose we could pinky swear on it.”

Pocketing the lighter with a soft chuckle, he lingered a moment in looking down on her before ultimately deciding it was in his best interest to take a seat beside her. Ru had been tempted to comment on how pointless any binding ode of trust between them would be. Pinky swears. Ru hadn’t even been aware of the concept for most of his childhood and he faintly recalled the childish awe he once held in regards to it. Surely he had at one point considered a pinky swear a very sacred thing. Now, it was… well, he had at least grown up enough to not blindly put faith into relying on trusting other people to do as they promise.

“To answer your question, by the way, I prefer to see everything and practice the speech before it actually happens. I like to lie to myself and say that if there’s no surprises, nothing will go wrong. As far as the speech goes, anyway. Anything beyond that is not my problem.”

Ruairi could have made one of bountiful remarks regarding control issues and the like, but a part of him understood her response in a way that made him regret even asking. This was a highly inopportune time for him to find any level of connection or understanding to Freyja, especially considering the thoughts of their past he was keeping well at bay in the back of his mind.

Frustration quickly became the water element’s sole emotion as time pressed on. It was not of the most help that he is a naturally, very highly uncooperative entity when things aren’t up to his own standards. Of course he relishes in leading the mirage of being so carefree but he is quite particular when it comes to a variety of things. One of those things happened to be him being in control of certain things, but he would never entertain the thought of being hypocritical about that when it came to both his and Freyja’s qualities.

“As charming as it is sitting here in the middle of this freezing cold and vastly dark hallway, I think we should go exploring. For one, if I continue to sit here and let this stupid ball of fire drain the life out of me minute by minute, I’m gonna be passed out on the floor before this speech is done. Two, it feels like it would be a really satisfying ‘fuck you’ to all the adults that forbade us from going down here when we were kids. Which, really, is reason enough.”

If all of his more irritating and stubborn strains of personality hadn’t been exhausted amid their speech writing, he probably would have pursued being an uncooperative jackass. However, he was mentally worn and had very little will left in him to protest something as harmless as getting up and stretching his legs to explore with her. Ru certainly didn’t need to be convinced to do it drunk - it was the one thrill he still had the vigor to chase. Although it did him no good in bettering his already poor navigation skills of the hallway. The addition of too many other halls and winding corridors did not help. However, as Freyja would occasionally stumble into him, he came to the conclusion that this alone could be a drinking game. Every so often he purposefully would make bumping into him subtly unavoidable. Plus, any apology he managed to get from Freyja - drunkenly spoken or not - was a victory.

The more childish argument pertaining to whose favorite color was superior - which obviously was Ru’s choice of blue - faded down into a brief moment of content between the pair. Which was followed by Ru’s eyes fixing to Freyja’s after she made another ploy of physical contact. She was always touchy when she was drunk and somehow he never seemed to react to it in any other way but surprise and mild puzzlement. Even after having spent the better half of their time being bumped into by the fire element, he was unprepared for her playful tag on his arm.

“You’re it.”

Even if he had tried, his efforts to fight not only his smile but also the second wind he caught to be able to play along would have been in vain. While Ruairi wasn’t exactly fond of succumbing to weakness of any kind, surely caving when it came to fun was a deserving exception. Tag, as he recalled, had been one of his favorite games as a child. It was much more fun when he had actually acquired friends to play it with as well. Besides, most of any mature sense he may have had - which wasn’t too much to begin with - was washed away shot by shot earlier. Although his intoxication certainly didn’t stop him from recognizing how unnatural something like this was for them in the present. It was even more so uncharacteristic for Ru to actually be enjoying doing anything in Freyja’s company.

If he hadn’t been having fun, Ru would have found it utterly ridiculous how someone who was stumbling into everything imaginable was still capable of more or less briskly outmaneuvering him. Not completely surprising though considering Ruairi’s pursuit was as harrowing as being chased by a drunk toddler who could manipulate water. Freyja’s the one that started it by dragging the use of magic in first, it was only fair he used his own back.

By the time he was able to determine she had actually trapped him in a room, the best he could do was make actually tagging him a difficult feat by using whatever minuscule source of water around them that he could. Those attempts were put to an abrupt end when she had managed to get close enough to actually fall into him enough that he was forced to close the distance between himself and the wall behind him. “Ow.” He instinctively murmured, though his eyes forced themselves to focus on the fact that she was quite literally what was keeping him against the wall. If he hadn’t already been tense before, he certainly became rigid after shifting to better support himself, and by association Freyja as well. Their eyes met and all so suddenly he was concerned that she would be able to feel how hard his heart was beating even through his heavy breaths.

“Got you, I won.”

His lips twitched into a small smirk. “Only because I let you out of pity.” He countered, though where his tone should have been dripping in arrogance, it was something far more tame.

“What the fuck is that.”

His eyes moved up with her own until his head inclined enough to make out the symbols that were glowing blue above him. Ruairi studied it from his awkward angle, his brows raising in awe as Freyja’s touch breathed life into other symbols that began to burn in the shade of a soft orange ember.

“That definitely has to do with us, doesn’t it?”

Having moved from against the wall and turned to better gauge what he was looking at, Ru allowed himself a few moments to burn the image of the runes into his memory. “Maybe.” His fingers gently traced the shapes, watching as his touch beckoned other various parts of the wall to glow a brilliant blue as well.

This was the precipice of things Ruairi was able to endure for the night, and after his previously rampant thoughts began to slow, he finally suggested they go back. The need to finish what he had started with his speech began to loom over him, and surely if he didn’t get it done sooner rather than later, it wouldn’t get done at all. And if his capabilities for complex thought hadn’t been nearly completely vanquished, he would have been more contributive with sharing whatever he could have possibly hypothesized about the runes on the walk back. But he knew without much mental strain that it was important neither of them mention this to anyone. The runes were one giant ball of mystery themselves, but Ruairi would not subject himself to explaining how or why he was down here to find them with Freyja. That explanation would strip him of both pride and dignity, and he would die before that happened.

One of the most shocking things of the night was that just after they reached their intended destination and attempted to check in with their companions, it was nearly day. Ru wasn’t sure if it was his inebriation that warped time or if it was this place, but he refused to believe they had really spent that long exploring and chasing each other through the corridors. But it simply made the need to complete his speech more imminent. And not allowing himself to further get distracted or disrupted in finishing the speech, he fried his remaining brain cells in the effort of completing it.

When finished, he decided that laying on the floor didn’t seem so bad compared to trying to get back to his dorm. It’s not like it was the first time he’s had to make do with passing out somewhere that wasn’t his bed. If anything, he was familiar with the practice of making odd places home for a night. But this place, right now… it wasn’t just something to settle for. Ru was actually content despite the lack of cushion. A few times he found his eyes shifting towards Freyja in the silence, just to appreciate the fact that he wasn’t alone in what would have been a very dark place without her.

“This whole night has felt unreal. Like a nightmare I can’t wake up from.”

“I get the feeling.” He quietly mumbled with an attempt at a chuckle, which only came out as a huff of air. Even his voice lacked the ability to have effort put into his tone, which by default just made it husky and quieter. Her voice was softer though. Far gentler then he was accustomed to hearing. She had a rather pleasant voice when she wasn’t belittling or spitting insults to him. Her presence, too, was not as unbearable tonight as he usually found it. And he was too tired to pretend that he wasn’t appreciative of this moment. Whatever they wanted to call it. Not that they were going to ever acknowledge this happened though. But it was happening now - and it wasn’t so bad.

“I’m happy you found someone, Ru.”

The blond turned his head too quickly. Regretted it. Blinked to clear the disruption in his already limited vision of Freyja as he let what she said sink in. Ruairi was rightfully bewildered - there’s no way in hell what she said was authentic. But her tone told him otherwise, and he still refused to believe it. He refused to believe that his whole angle of him being with Heris was blowing up in his face so soon. Of all things she could be, Freyja wasn’t supposed to be happy for him. And she certainly wasn’t supposed to mean it. It was impossible to not try to find any trace of insincerity somewhere on her - her eyes, her lips, her face, even her body language. But from what he could gauge, nothing convicted her of lying, and it was devastating.

“I meant it.”

A tension epicentered at his jaw, rippling through the rest of him. She was not reacting to this the way he had intended for her to. He justified such a sudden relationship with Heris to prove a point, but now he was risking facing the reality that Freyja hadn’t actually cared whether he could keep someone or not. So what would his overreaction by putting himself in this position in a relationship really prove to Freyja then? These thoughts were terrifying and he hated them all with a passion previously only reserved for very few things in his life.

“In all the time I’ve known you, I don’t think you’ve ever truly been happy. I hope she changes that for you.”

Those words though. Those crippled Ruairi. For too many reasons, all of which were difficult to mull over in such an exhausted state. Yet because he was so tired he was finding himself unable to both hide from and keep the thoughts of inevitable realities at bay. The academy wasn’t great, Ru wasn’t oblivious to its bountiful faults, but he preferred his life here. It’s why he chose to ignore everything wrong with this place. He liked who he was here. He liked how people perceived him here. If happiness were to be found anywhere for him it would certainly be here. But this life, this illusion he’s built for himself, it was all temporary. Destined to end. Just as much as he was destined to be what he spent his youth and every summer being groomed to be. Nobody in his life right now fit into the picture that was being built for him beyond this academy. And that was a lonely thought.

“Me too.” Those two whispered words shredded his vocal cords on their way out. Ru wasn’t prepared to address any of those previously locked away thoughts. So he used the sight of Freyja to give him the opportunity to forcibly get rid of them and replace them with his observations. His eyes traced the shape of her face. Followed the trails her strands of hair made. Studied the curve of her lips. Watched the effect her slow, patterned breathing had on her.

“What are you thinking?”

His eyes slowly traveled back up to her eyes. “You were the first person to ever call me Ru.” There was something distantly melancholic, wholly reminiscent, and somberly nostalgic in his thoughtless response. For just a second he was seeing her through the eyes of a version of himself lost to the past. Through the eyes of the boy that so desperately wanted a friend and found one. And it was startling to feel how submerged his former perception of her currently felt. Even if he had wanted to feel it, it felt intangible. And just as quickly as he had discovered that sensation, an agonizing searing in his back compelled him to choke down the noise of pain caught in his throat and turn onto his side. His eyes tightly shut and he had to focus on counting his breaths to deter the pain from escalating.

“Spending time with you is killing me slowly.” He gritted, not wishing to speak with her any further. Ru nearly sounded annoyed now, but it was more so spurred from the intensity and suddenness of the flare of pain from his scar. He closed his eyes to make a point, and waited several moments until his lack of reaction to anything eventually led her to fall asleep. Ruairi knew better than to fall asleep first while he was facing her, but he also could not physically sleep with his back turned to her. So here he laid. So exhausted that it was difficult to sleep. Opening his eyes after some time to find her figure shivering beneath the blanket of cold that this floor offered, he hesitated before finding it within himself to raise her body’s temperature. It was surprising to him that he wasn’t putting much effort into using his magic at all, and that it was still effectively working. Ru faintly smiled to himself as well, entertained by the irony that the fire element needed to be warmed up.

The blond didn’t have to pour extensive concentration into upkeeping the magic - once Freyja stopped shivering, he relented in raising it. The temperature would remain steady for a while, if he had to guess, at least up until around the time they would have to get up for class. Or in his case, until the overwhelming desire to shower before officially starting his day disturbed his slumber. Closing his eyes, he tried to pretend that the sound of Freyja’s soft breaths were annoying versus being the sound he was lulling himself to sleep with.

Freyja | Fire | Edward, Heris, Ru

“You were the first person to ever call me Ru.”

The words rolled around in her head all night like a rock in a washing machine, never getting any less startling or profound as she transitioned through various stages of consciousness. When she woke up in the morning, she was surprised to find that she was still fairly warm despite the coolness still seeping off the floor and the lack of clothing she’d maintained since she’d slipped on the small dress she was wearing the night before. When she woke up, the words were still there, cycling in her mind like they were never meant to be there. Maybe it was that she was still a little drunk, or maybe it wasn’t. She didn’t want to think about the latter option.

“You’re going to kill the girl, Heris.” She could vaguely distinguish the voice from somewhere closer to the entrance of the sanctum. Edward. He said the name in a way that made Freyja feel as though it wasn’t the young woman’s name at all.

“And if I do, there will be no regrets. What’s a little revenge between old friends?”

“You have no idea what you’re doing.”

“I think I know exactly what I’m doing. If you don’t like it, I must be doing it well.”

Vaguely, the thought occurred to Freyja to wake the water element up if for no other reason than to force him to witness the consequences of his spontaneous choices. It was so rare for him to do so, and they almost always blew up in his face. Though she searched her brain for a time when a spontaneous choice hadn’t blown up in his face, one never came to mind. Though, to be fair, she rarely thought highly of the choices he deliberated on, either.

As the footsteps drew closer, Freyja nudged Ru softly with her hand. To avoid drawing attention, she didn’t attempt any sort of light. When he started to stir, she pressed a finger to her lips, begging him to remain silent if only for a second or two. Despite this, the fire element hadn’t missed the way that Heris and Edward’s conversation had trailed off, nor the way it appeared that she was directly beelining towards the room they were in.

“For God’s sake, Edward,” Heris seemed annoyed, and had little desire to put on whatever facade she typically wore for the sake of blending into the school. Freyja was simply confused as to how they knew one another, though she assumed that there was more to this than she understood. Based on the half-awake state of confusion on the blond’s face, he was clearly just as ignorant to their relationship as she was.

“I didn’t do this,” his voice remained steady and full of conviction, unwilling to give Heris the upper hand. “As one would assume, magic can only do so much to prevent what is already destined to be.”

Though she couldn’t necessarily put her finger on what exactly indicated it to her most, Heris seemed absolutely outraged by Edward’s comment. If she weren’t genuinely afraid of being reported to her boyfriend’s family for breaking one of the most important rules that had been outlined for her, she likely would have laughed or said something outrageous to break the tension and discomfort she was feeling inside.

“Make them forget this ever happened,” Heris demanded, gesturing to the pair who were blankly staring back at them. “And I swear that if you even think about botching the job, I will take your powers away and hoard them all for myself.”

“And how exactly do you plan to do that? I created you, darling, not the other way around.”

“I have my ways.”

Gently and with the slightest bit of apprehension, the dark-haired man grabbed the fire element’s hands. He managed to enter her mind without Heris, which was a feat in itself. Cleaning up after her was enough of an annoyance without having her breathing down his neck as he did so.

In the moments that followed, Freyja looked around and noticed that she and Edward were the only people in the room. A purple glow was swirling around them, which she knew from experience was an effect of his magic. Though she was tempted to beg him to do anything other than what he was planning on doing, she lost the ability to speak by existing in one of his mindscapes. Despite this, his magic of the mind seemed to lack limitation, if for no other reason than the way he seemed to have gathered all of her thoughts without trying.

“Don’t be afraid,” he began, and though it was a compulsion it also seemed like an earnest plea. “You remember every part of last night in vivid detail, especially the runes. You’re convinced that they’re connected to the spell from your wall, and that things with Arah are not as they seem. Things with everyone here are not as they seem. You remember what happened between you and Ruairi when you were children, it wasn’t what they told you. The Administration forced lies into your head to protect themselves. You will remember the way to the place where it happened, and everything will become clear to you when you get there. You won’t speak a word about it to anyone, and you will do whatever is necessary to get yourself and Ruairi there as quickly as possible. You don’t care about the Ascension Trials because you will be killed if you win. You will be protective of yourself around Heris, but you don’t remember where you’ve seen her before. You don’t remember seeing us here together, and you don’t remember anything about her other than that she’s his girlfriend. You will do anything in your power to protect him from her influence.”

When she snapped awake, she found that she was on the floor beside Ru with no memory of what had occurred. No traces of anyone or anything grabbed her attention other than the blond on the floor beside her. His hair was messy and he looked confused, but couldn’t place anything any more than she could. It felt as though she was grasping at the air for clues as to what had happened the night before, though the odd thing was that she could remember it all perfectly.

“We must have been drunk as fuck last night,” she mumbled, feeling slightly dizzy. Since she’d woken up, she felt nauseous and a bit out of it. For what reason, she couldn’t place, though it didn’t seem like her typical hangover. She never got sick, and the only time she ever showed symptoms was when she had been spelled. Mainly by the curly-haired boy beside her.

“But if we were so drunk,” she raised her chin to study his expression from where she was laying on the floor. She could see him in the dim light of a few candles which she didn’t remember lighting. He must have woken up before her and done it. “Then why do I remember everything so clearly? And why do I feel sick?”

Her eyes narrowed and she continued in a threatening tone. “I swear to god, Ru, if this was just some ploy to knock me out before the trials, I will fucking murder you.”

Ruairi | Water | Freyja, Floki, Heris

Ruairi would never understand why crossing from one threshold to another evaporated thoughts as if they had never existed. He stood in the entrance of his dorm room, cycling through his most recent experiences to revive whatever thought, or thoughts, he had just lost. Freyja and the Sanctum was a complex nightmare and begrudgingly the first thing that came to mind. The vivid details were something he tried to spare himself from thinking too hard on. Yet they lingered. Festered. Grew to be an insurmountable monster that wrestled to consume him. His hand ran down the length of his face to wipe the slate clean. Stopped at his mouth to cover the lips that had been too loose with Freyja.

Heris. She was a wonderful, godsend of a distraction that he had eagerly sought this morning. The events in the Sanctum were too much for him to want to engage with Freyja in any way that would lead to discussing the night, or the morning. Freyja had hardly been the insufferable company he had known her to be over the years during their inebriated crusade through the Sanctum. For just a moment he could have convinced himself on a drunken delusion that she was pleasant.

A searing jolt reminded him otherwise. A sigh pushed through his nostrils as his hand dropped from his face and found itself at his side as he stepped further into the room. Part of Ru considered walking back out the door to catch up with Heris, tell her that he had changed his mind about getting a head start on preparing for the rehearsal, and inviting her to his room. It was simply an excuse so he wouldn’t be condemned to solitude with his thoughts. He’s selfish, he’s hyper-aware of this truth, but he would use whoever and whatever he had to for any act of self-preservation. In this case, such being his sanity.

Whatever had slipped his mind after entering the room following his time with Heris was gone. All that remained was a subtle headache. If those lost thoughts were important, they would have to find him at a more convenient time. Searching for it in his head only led him down a twisted path he cared not to venture.

Clothes. Ru found himself beelining to his dresser. Packed full of neatly segregated and organized articles of clothing. This small grasp of order and control he had over the organization of his things was soothing. Too much thought would be put into wearing attire far more flattering than a uniform for the rehearsal. It would be nice to wear clothing of his own choice more often here, yet he understood in an uncomfortable sense what conformity with something as simple as a uniform yielded to those who dictated the expectation to begin with. It was an understanding too close to home.

“Honey, I’m home!”

Floki’s ecstatic entrance to the room was not surprising to Ru anymore. He pondered whether his desensitization to his roommate’s strange antics was healthy. “I’m busy,” Ru replied, rummaging delicately through his clothing as he heard a thump sound from the direction of Floki’s bed.

“I’m being neglected,” Floki whimpered dramatically in a faux manner. “What have I done to earn your indifferent demeanor? Your flat scorn? You don’t even look at me anymore!” He cried before his sound evolved into a sharp cackle.

“You need help,” Ru commented.

“And you need to tell me everything that happened last night before you leave, pretty please?” Floki’s amused insistence triggered a grimace on the blond. All the effort Ru put into focusing solely on his clothes would not be laid to waste.

“Later,” he turned, vaguely gestured to his desk, “if you could skim what’s on the desk and give me real feedback, that would be great.” Ruairi didn’t give two shits about what Floki thought of the papers that contained the speech with Freyja’s scribbles and Ru’s corrections. It was just a simple ploy to silence Floki, if only for a few minutes. Assuming he could read in his head, that is.

In the interlude of silence, Ruairi traded his uniform for a baby blue dress shirt and black slacks. It was a strange sentiment to be so in love with clothes exactly tailored to his physique. All of his personal clothing was made specifically to fit him perfectly, and solely him. This was something he did not take for granted. Following tucking his shirt in, folding his collar down, and rolling his cuffs to the midpoint of his forearms, he swallowed down the acceptance that he would be faced with spending more time with Freyja for this rehearsal. He doubted there would need to be much orchestration to crash it as she so desired. As long as they were in the same room, chaos was bound to unfold anyway.

Floki tossed the papers he was holding back down onto the desk and took a turn in Ru’s direction. No comment was made about the blond’s change of clothes despite the faint furrow of Floki’s brows. “You’ll have to offer Freyja my praise. She did a stellar job fixing what I had assumed to be unsavable,” he said with a cheshire grin. A scowl etched itself into Ru’s features, though he was not given a second to retort. “I’m surprised you haven’t left already, though. I thought one of your sole purposes in life is to beat her at everything, and if I were her, I’d already be on my merry way to the rehearsal.” A spark of mischief glinted in Floki’s green eyes, and they grew with satisfaction at the prospect of seeing his roommate irritated with the thought he inserted. Sometimes Ru’s ego was just too impressionable for his own good, but it made for good fun on Floki’s part.

“Thanks for nothing,” Ru grumbled, stuffing his hands into his pockets and walking towards the door. He felt collected enough. Besides, he did like the idea of being first. Any thought of behaving as anything more or less than her rival was currently unwelcome in his head, and this act of spite just felt easier and far more natural to act upon.

“Love you too!”

Ru rolled his eyes at Floki’s call as he closed the dorm room behind him, met with a new barrage of thoughts now that he was on the other side. The rehearsal would be a disaster. To what magnitude? Only time would tell. Perhaps he was a fool for trying to rush into it, or maybe he was a hopeful genius for wanting to get it done and over with. Whatever the case, he made a vow to pretend their amiable drunken night together never happened. The runes, of course, he would not be able to let go of so easily. But at the very least he could forcibly overlook the other details. Now his head felt full as he walked through the corridors and he blamed Freyja entirely. It wasn’t fair but neither was she. At the very least he aimed to take pleasure in a small victory by beating her to the rehearsal if only to make himself feel a little better about, well, everything.

Miss Freyja Eloquijm | Fire | Arah, Ru

Freyja had almost forgotten about the hellish scene of the previous night by the time she arrived back to her dorm, only for the cycle of thoughts to immediately resume at the sight of their wall, which was still damaged beyond instant repair. With magic in such great abundance, one would have assumed it would have been gone in a few minutes. Hours, at most. Yet, it appeared to her to be exactly the same as when she had departed the night prior. It held the same odd yet familiar stench, something she couldn’t place despite journeying to the depths of her memories in order to try to reach it. Same charred appearance, too, a horrifyingly symbolic vision of what it looked like when Freyja and Ru inhabited the same space for more than a moment. Maybe it was just her, and he was the faultless victim she liked to blame everything on. After all, everything she touched burned.

Pushing that thought aside, Freyja quickly went to work trying to get the smell of the Sanctum off of her body and remove any indication of where she’d been all night. She hadn’t succeeded, because she was still brushing her hair in the clothes from the night prior when Arah walked in from the classes that had happened earlier in the day. Many were canceled because of the rehearsal, but some of the better students made a conscious effort to show up to the ones that hadn’t anyway. Of course, it was no surprise that Arah was one of them.

“Where did you end up last night? Henriik came by looking for you earlier. I had no idea what to tell him.”

“I was making passionate love to Ruairi, of course. On Henriik’s bed. Did you tell him that?” Freyja smirked, watching the earth element’s bewilderment from within the mirror. She seemed to go through all five stages of grief at once, before finally settling on the fact that it hadn’t actually occurred. It was a calculated risk on Freyja’s part, considering the fact that the statement wasn’t a total lie. One that paid off, of course. She didn’t gamble unless she knew she’d win.

“With the way you live, I could almost believe you’re not lying.”

“But you won’t.”

“You’re right, I won’t.”

“Does the wall smell weird to you?”

“No, why?”

Mentally, Freyja recalled that Floki hadn’t smelled anything either. Why was she the only one that noticed when anything was off around the academy? It was exhausting being so right and so astute all the time.

“No reason,” she shrugged it off, leaving it for later. She could do some research during the trials, she’d decided they weren’t as important to her as they usually were, which seemed odd. Still, she chalked it up to maturity despite a darker feeling of impending doom surrounding them this year. Some kind of intuition, maybe. The thought came as quickly as it went, she still felt quite unwell although it’d been a few hours at this point and she was still just as annoyed with Ru as she had been when she left him. In fact, she’d gone to one of the outdoor classrooms that wasn’t in use to use her magic in the name of burning off steam. It hadn’t completely helped, but she’d arrived back feeling more ill and less angry, which seemed to show some sort of progress.

“I’m leaving,” Freyja announced abruptly, and she could tell by Arah’s demeanor that she was beginning to grow suspicious. “Paying an unwanted visit to my boyfriend, don’t you worry.”

“Which one?”

“A lady never tells,” she blew a kiss to her roommate, walking slower than she typically would have to get there early enough to make Ru look like a fool. Slower than she thought, too, if the fact that it was her catching up to him was any indication.

Upon growing nearer to him, Freyja scanned his muscular physique with the slightest annoyance. He was built like a god, and he’d chosen today of all days to wear clothes that showed it. She preferred when he stuck to the plain school uniform, left on uneven ground and forced to stare at her while she broke all the rules of a truce they’d never formed. Even today, she’d swapped out her clothing from the night prior and slipped on a short black dress that was cut, revealing skin in places that would make even the ancient and blinding faculty members blush. This was one of the subtle ways she wielded power over Ru, and she was pissed that he was playing her game against her.

“The stripper I ordered was immeasurably more handsome than you, so why are you dressed like him?” Matching her strides to him, Freyja struggled to keep up in the tall heels she’d selected to attempt to put herself at eye level with the water element. She’d failed in getting all the way up to eye level, but she’d closed the majority of the distance between them without looking too out of sorts. “Now’s a good time to remind you that if you sabotage this in any way it’s only going to reflect poorly on you. I have academic immunity here.” She put a hand to her ear, challenging him with her gaze. “What do you have again? What’s going for you?”

Bickering the rest of the way to the grand hall, Freyja felt a bit like a child again with Ru. All the sneaking around, the mischief, the banter, it was something that she hadn’t had in a long time. Not with Henriik attempting to force her onto the straight and narrow with him, something she wanted no part of. Putting her ear to the door to hear what they were discussing, she waited for the perfect moment before nearly swinging both of the doors off their hinges as she and Ru made their grand, dramatic entrance.

“I’m sorry to say I missed the first part of the meeting, the invitation seemed to have been lost in transit. How about you, Ru? Did you receive your invitation?” A wicked smile graced her lips. “I suppose you won’t mind if we sit in, will you?”

“Actually, yes, Miss Eloquijm. We mind very much, considering this is official school business that students are not permitted to join in on.”

“Considering that I’ve already heard your plans to rig the last two events in favor of your son, Headmaster Delamater, I suppose we could both talk, or we could both take this opportunity to reflect on how finicky a position of power can be to cling to.”

Although this seemed to shut him up properly, Freyja still wasn’t done with him. “And, you might think to let me in on these things more often, or who knows what I might say when the school comes under inspection next month? I’m sure they will be quite interested in hearing what I have to say, what with my role as your nephew’s lover and confidant.” Smiling in a vicious way, she added, “For now, I suppose we can agree to come to some sort of misunderstanding. I wouldn’t want to hold up official business, now would I? Here’s my offer, and I will only offer it once: this meeting adjourns and every individual here stands out in the hall for seven minutes so Ruairi and I can rehearse our speech for this evening, and I will leave until I am invited back on official business of delivering the speech tonight. I will even throw in the added benefit of pretending this never happened. What do you say?”

Unsurprisingly, the room cleared in less than a minute, the young student making each and every staff member look like a fool. Batting her eyelashes at Ru, she gestured for him to come up to the stage with her. “Shall we, darling?”

…

After fine-tuning the details of the speech, Freyja and Ru exited the banquet hall with Freyja loudly critiquing the decorations for this year's trials. “I must admit, it could have used a woman’s touch,” she finally said, exiting the building and feeling the chill of the air outside. As Ru turned, she got a glimpse of his scar through his shirt, and she could have sworn she had a flashback to something she didn’t remember. Looking the slightest bit frazzled as some of the realizations from the night prior dawned on her, Freyja pulled Ru aside, away from the staff, and looked him dead in the eye. “I need to ask you something. How did you get that scar on your back?” She was sure she sounded crazy, but the concern on her face, she was sure, was enough to assure him that it wasn’t a threat or a joke, but something more. “When you remember that day, how did we get there, so far from here? Were we the only ones there when it happened?”

“Freyja? Where the hell have you been?” Before he could respond, Henriik’s voice pierced through the tension, and the fire element was forced to regain her composure for the sake of putting on airs. Easily, she slapped Ru, though it wasn’t as hard as she’d done it before.

“You’re a fucking asshole and a disgrace, I cannot believe they would force me to do anything with you, god forbid it be something that requires charisma and a miniscule quantity of wit!” She hoped he saw the regret in her pale green eyes, though she couldn’t take any chances. Something was wrong, and she wanted nothing more than to disregard every event that was to occur in the next few days and run back to the place where it had happened, the place where her memories began. That was what her wall smelled like: home.

…

The next few hours went by slowly as Freyja entertained her boyfriend. Rather, she allowed him to go on and on about some boring interest of his while she spent hours making herself look perfect for the event of the evening. With the way he’d dressed for the rehearsal and the way she’d treated him when they last spoke, Freyja was entirely sure Ru would be back with a vengeance. Therefore, she could take no chances by allowing an insecurity to develop or a flaw to slip. She finally settled on an emerald green dress with a slit down the front, something formal enough to prevent being apprehended for breaking the rules, but something seductive enough to make her feel like she’d gotten around them, too. Her makeup was done, and her hair fell in bouncy ringlets that contrasted her typical appearance. She truly looked like a goddess, although it was wasted on her bore of a date. He was dressed in the finest clothes money could buy, but it didn’t mean as much as it usually would have, not when she felt like she was connected to a threat she had barely recognized before. Why was it all revealing itself now, though it had escaped her for so many years? Something was so wrong, and she couldn’t help but feel like every moment spent at the academy was a waste of life and purpose. The place her memories began was calling her, desperately.

“Let’s go make our entrance,” she ordered, studying her boyfriend with a critical and disapproving look. Couples were already making their way down to the grand hall, and she felt responsible to be one of them. Despite this, the feeling ate at her that her conversation with the blond had been left unfinished, and she would have difficulty getting him alone in such a large crowd. Especially if he was still mad about the slap from earlier, especially if his girlfriend and her boyfriend had anything to do with it.